Social media platforms provide ample opportunities for far-right actors to make their voices heard – particularly at times of crisis when reliable information is scarce and authoritative sources are contested. During the refugee ‘crisis’ and the COVID-19 pandemic, far-right communication strategies on social media relied heavily on hate speech and disinformation as well as affective calls-to-violence and/or action to claim visibility and resonance (Ekman 2019; Schulze et al. 2022; Jost et al. 2023). But how do far-right actors communicate crises events which do not map easily onto established far-right narratives?
The absence of a coherent far-right positioning vis-à-vis the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Volk 2024) creates a narrative dilemma for the broader European far-right scene. Yet, the centrality of Telegram in the mediation of the Russo-Ukraine war presents a favourable ‘discursive opportunity’ for a specific subset of the contemporary far right: deplatformed “far-right influencers” with an established presence on Telegram (Rothut et al. 2024). Additionally, while research on ‘far-right influencers’ on social media is growing (Åkerlund 2020; Maly 2020; Leidig 2023; Rothut et al. 2024), to date little comparative research exists on how these influencers navigate crisis events strategically. The Russo-Ukraine war hence makes for a particularly relevant backdrop to re-examine our understanding of contemporary far-right communication practices.
The primary aim of this paper is therefore to understand how the threatened far-right “selfimage of dissidents” (Wolters 2022) brought about by the Russo-Ukraine war is negotiated by two key “far-right influencers” (Rothut et al. 2024) through their branding strategies and communication practices on Telegram. Using a mixed-methods CADS approach, the paper asks a) what influencer communication practices these two influencers employ during the Ukraine war compared to the Covid-19 pandemic, and b) how these practices relate to the distinct influencer branding strategies they pursue. By analysing the Telegram channels of two ‘poster boys’ of the far right - [redacted] - the paper advances our understanding of how far-right actors navigate narrative dilemmas and discursive opportunities brought about by crisis events in their attempt to (re)claim visibility, resonance, and legitimacy.
Initial findings indicate that [redacted 1]’s Telegram communication on both the RussoUkraine war and the COVID-19 pandemic frequently include key tropes of far-right online communication, including affective appeals, hate speech, partisan disinformation, but few explicit ‘influencer’ practices. These findings clash with his attempt to shed his image as a street hooligan and portray himself as a persecuted citizen journalist (Pearson 2023). In contrast, [redacted]’s online communication on the Russo-Ukraine war is notable for its absence of outright partisanship or extremist language. Unlike his communication on the pandemic, it also lacks activist calls-to-action. Instead, [redacted 2] brands himself as a metapolitical strategist, frequently employing parasocial and networking influencer practices on Telegram.
The findings contribute to our understanding of the diversity of far-right communication practices during crises, beyond hate speech and disinformation. They also speak to the broader academic debate on how extremist actors respond to platform regulation efforts by (re)-branding themselves as journalists or political strategists respectively.
